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One day out of the blue the phone rang and Dan answered it, something drew me to the banister to listen, maybe it was the tone in this voice, or the way he sank to sit on the stair but I waited there, wondering till the too short call was finished and I looked at him still, eye to eye, soul to soul and he told me my little brother had died, in a road accident.

I sank to my knees and wailed.

The last ten years have been a lesson in living, first I had to learn to live at all, to stop hiding under the duvet, to see through the fog of shock and denial, to walk one step in front of another and to battle the random panic attacks to get my girl to school.

More living took 2 years to come, to smile and mean it, to feel a little flutter of happiness in my heart again.

But life is never the same again, each day the dreadful reality of life has to be forgotten to live some sort of worthwhile existence.

We are broken really, the survivors of tragic loss, those here one moment, happy and young and full of life, then gone the next. We walk about like normal folk, but we aren’t.

I spoke to a friend the other day, there was a road accident that took a young teen’s life in my community this week, my friend has known such gut torn out sorrow and as we spoke I could see it in her eyes, taste it, for I have known it and I wanted to hug her, but we both knew, we had walking to do, kids to get home and such emotion can overwhelm.

The club has new members from my town tonight, a Mum and Dad and ( oh why such suffering) a little boy who loved his sister.

Can I say for the record how tired I am, how horrified and sad and drained and wishing life was kinder?

How pointless life can seem when such love can die?

Now I need to put that reality I wish I didn’t know back in it’s box and get on with life, for what it’s worth.